penitence
by CeliaBlair24
Summary: There's a small memory, one of a winter, a mission that had gone on too long and a man who frowned deeply, for all that he loved to smile. There's reality, a cold cell, and the realization that the past could not be repeated, and some mistakes can only be paid for in silence.


Clover doesn't look over his shoulder as they head back. It's a little observation of his, like noticing how white the snow on that one cliff-side is, or how blue the sky can be when there's no clouds in the sky to cover it.

It's a new thing to Qrow, who's so used to back-alleys and street rats with hands too fast to catch on a good day; to two-faced thieves and murderers who like the naïve, if only because they never run far enough, fast enough to evade and maneuver and _live_. He can't find it within himself to imagine it, the gilded, beautifully perfect life a man could live in a fortress like Atlas, to thrive so completely in the midst of protection that danger can only be some faraway figment of someone else's reality.

_No wonder James fears. _

The tundra's the same as the rest of upper Mantle: too white to see anything past the suns reflection, and far too cold to bother trying anyway.

Clover's unbothered by this, but that's all upbringing, Qrow would reckon. Even with the thickened layers of his own borrowed uniform and the aura thrumming warmly within him, the air is frigid enough to blue the tips of his fingers and raise the hairs on the back of his unprotected neck.

"Airship's this way." Clover says, voice butter-smooth and unaffected. Qrow grunts, rubbing the chill from his arms as he digs his booted feet through the dredges of ankle-deep snow collecting beneath them.

It'd been snowing like this since earlier this morning; storming intermittently since fall had ended. Mantle's in for a cold period, so says the calendar. The days will only be colder from here on out.

_What a bunch of bullshit. _

"Hey," Clover's finally looking him over, boots pulled to the side and head tilted skyward. His hand's grasping after the scroll tucked into his back-pocket, the gesture familiar in its ease and the way Clover still can't meet him in the eyes and say exactly what it is he's doing.

"Hey to you too." The airships docked, two guards standing on either side of its entrance. It's white, like the tundra around them and the sky, long since bleached of its cerulean blue.

"You go on ahead and get warmed up, I'll…" A pause. Clover's eyes drift over him uneasily, the smile on his lips lightly strained.

"Yeah, I'll go ahead." Qrow waves him off. Watches those bared shoulders slump, if minutely. The way his brows relax into the crest of his forehead, open and unassuming.

"I'll be right there." Qrow hears him say.

He believes him, if anything. Clover does not know how to lie, not to someone like him.

It isn't a long wait – but it never is, so that's nothing unexpected. What _is_ unexpected is the way Clover looks downer than he had been just minutes before, the way he's drawn his shoulders tighter into himself, legs dragging along the metal walkway between the entrance of the ship and the small space beside the heater that Qrow's scooped for himself.

"So, how's it going for Castle in the Sky?" Clover looks amused enough with that, at least, but green eyes still lever the ship's heater with something not-quite like annoyance, a little more resigned than anything. It's broken, this thing, like a lot of things in this ship seem to be. Spare of a spare, this ship. Something set aside for small missions like these that shouldn't exist.

"They don't feel the storm up there, truly unfortunate." There's a chill drifting off Clover's arms and the heavy set of his shoulders. His brows draw together in a bridge that wrinkles his forehead, and Qrow finds himself shuffling to make space for him to sit even though his gaze hadn't left the ship's heater since he'd drifted in.

"Bad news up top?" Their hands brush as he sits, and that's something familiar now, enough so that Qrow can't find it within himself to pull away.

"Not quite."

There's the usual quiet that comes after, when Clover's head thuds softly against the wall and Qrow doesn't have the heart to tell him off for it. The space between them isn't anything monumental, three hand paces and Clover's scrappy Atlesian-wear all that's standing between them. And it's not like Qrow holds his breath for it (he doesn't, not for _anything_), but Clover always looks a little more human when he settles down like this, takes a breather like anyone else would take a breather after big, top-secret missions where everyone finds themselves depending on _you_ (and Qrow takes a breath too, settles against the wall and parses through his memory of today. The mission wasn't big or taxing – not physically, anyway – but it was exhausting work, if only for the fact that this was between them and HQ and no one was to know about it, not even the team he'd brought with him, Ruby and her posse of somewhat-idiots. _Like Oz-_).

"Hey…Qrow?" Clover's staring off again, looking beyond the metal walls of their airship. The furrow between his brows has deepened, and his usual smile's long slipped from his expression. Qrow finds himself drawing a little closer, fingers reaching; the cold metal of the floor – that tiny bit of space between them – not completely registering.

The quiet after lasts for only a while.

"You – You've been doing this for far longer than I have," Clover doesn't turn, but the heat of his words warms the air around them, and Qrow finds himself pulling nearer still, wondering. "The General speaks often, of that past you all share. The order you'd had, the one against Salem."

When Clover smiles it's faint, nothing like his usual broad and charming. It's inexplicable then, perhaps, that Qrow finds himself more curious than he'd been even just earlier on, that he finds himself drawn even closer, hand reaching out for Clover's own. It's not a useless effort, for how frigid Clover's demeanor has grown, the hand beneath his is warm, much warmer than stress would warrant it.

"You know you can tell me anything, we're partners aren't we? Trust and all that."

The laugh Qrow gets is warm too, breathless in its own way.

"Mm. It's only that I was wondering, you know, you've known the General for decades, and… it's… I'm worried." Seafoam green eyes, like the beaches he'd seen one terrible excursion to Menagerie, clear yet clouded; a sadness there that Qrow knew only too well.

In the face of that, he can only smile, crooked as he knows it to be.

"How's about before we straight up to HQ, you and I get a drink?"

Qrow earns himself a raised brow at that, the slightest of upturned lips.

"Thought you'd decided to quit drinking."

Qrow looks on, traces the panels in the metal walls, layered and smooth, like the callous fingers under his own that have yet to pull away.

"Oh?" Qrow turns, a smile in his words that hasn't been present in too long. "I meant to say, you'll get a drink, I'll get something mellow. Lemonade on the rocks, how's about that?"

To that, for finally, Clover laughs fully and properly. A happy sound that gurgles from deep within his chest, warming the cold and filling the empty air.

"Alright then." He says. "Let's do that."

* * *

It's cold in his cell, frigid the same way it was back then, except this time there is no half-broken heater to warm him, no smiling presence to work against the chill in the air. That makes sense, he'd guess. He was a prisoner here, and no amount of status and reputation could make up for the things he'd done, spurred on by rage and betrayal and the need to fulfill his own agenda.

He deserved this.

He's kept alone, for the most part. The guards come in pairs, but refuse to speak to him. They're armed, and step no farther than three paces away from the clear bulletproof walls of his cell. Their eyes never leave him.

He doesn't blame them for this, not even in the slightest.

There's blood on his hands, on most of his clothes, his boots which he'd left by the entrance of his cell. There's blood on his blade, his pride and joy, designed and forged all his own at the height of his youth and exuberance for _more_. Deep red and dripping in his memory, and, perhaps, wherever it is they'd chosen to keep it (he doubts anyone would wipe it down for him, it's evidence and Atlas has always been thorough).

He doesn't ask after it.

He doesn't say a word, really.

Outside, the hallway is almost as quiet as his cell. The guards rotate every three hours or so, and they never speak, not even amongst themselves. They do tell him, though, that he'll be visited soon. James, they say, General Ironwood, is displeased with him. Angered, and righteously, rightfully so.

He doesn't answer them when they look him over, asses him the way they would a common criminal. He doesn't look up, not even once, from his hands that refuse to stop shaking, still red and raw, the blood dried and seeped into the crevices of his skin.

James, he'll be here soon. He'll bring whoever he has that's left of his team, whatever their names was. He'd never learnt it, not enough to say it confidently, anyway. He'd been partnered with Clover, that's all he knew. For the short while he'd stayed here, he'd thought that would be enough.

_(It's not. Of course, it's not. Clover isn't breathing, isn't living, and Qrow has only himself to blame-) _

He wonders what they'll think of him now, if they don't have opinions of him already. He'd never been a popular figure, but they'd been okay with him the last time he'd seen them, and Clover had always been an advocate for good relations with everyone.

_(The horseshoe badge fits snugly in his hands. He wonders if they'll demand this from him, too. They have no reason to see him and his as anything of worth, to have courtesy for, he wonders if they'll simply pry it from his hands, shake their heads and rage the way he would have done if the roles were reversed, if someone else had drawn their blade, had pulled the trigger-)_

_(Except someone else _did_, and Qrow did _nothing_, and that was his fault, too.)_

"Do you regret it?"

There's a man outside his cell. Younger than himself, but not by much. Clover's age.

A friend of his, he'd guess. Clover had many friends.

"…I regret a lot of things." Perhaps the man hears the truth in his words, perhaps he simply doesn't care. He only stands there, watches for a while, and neglects to say more.

_(And in the back of his mind, to the very bottom of his heart, Qrow knows he deserves this, too.)_


End file.
